


sandstorm

by destinies



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Angst, Crossdressing, Disguise, Enforcer Kylo Ren, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Loss of Virginity, Mechanic Rey, Misogyny, POV Kylo Ren, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear War, mentions of forced pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-02 06:48:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17259530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/destinies/pseuds/destinies
Summary: In a world where only men roam freely, Kylo Ren, Chief Enforcer of the Order, will find his life forever changed when he is stranded in the sleepy desert outpost of Nemo and meets a boy named Rey, a gifted Fixer who harbors a terrible secret.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally written and released as part of the 2018 Reylo Charity Anthology. I'm very excited to be able to share it with everyone now! It owes a huge spiritual debt to [animal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/animal/pseuds/animal)'s [The lamb's thirst](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15757227/chapters/36647889), another dusty, lonesome Reylo dystopia story that made me want to write one of my very own. ♥
> 
> While there is no graphic violence or sexual assault depicted in this story, there are references in the worldbuilding to _Handmaid’s Tale_ -esque oppression of women on a systemic level. If those themes upset you, please don't feel any pressure to read this story!
> 
> So many thanks to [afalsebravado](https://archiveofourown.org/users/afalsebravado), [TourmalineGreen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tourmalinegreen) aka TrixieRen, and [voicedimplosives](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives) for betaing this and looking it over before I submitted it. Extra special thanks to Trixie, who offered me invaluable moral support as I was crunching last-minute, and made the beautiful moodboard below:

Kylo Ren, Chief Enforcer of the Order, is returning from a mission of grim import in the South when his Silencer breaks down in the desert.

The first sign of trouble is a sputter, then a spark, and then the whole thing jolts and shudders and the engine whirs down. Kylo would find his ill luck unbelievable, but given the week he’s had, he very much believes it. He tries every trick he knows—flipping switches, adjusting dials, redirecting electrical output—before banging his fist on the dashboard and simply yelling, as if the car can hear him.

The Silencer is not the most elegant vehicle, but terrain no longer calls for elegance these days. The bastard child of a tank and an old sports car, it was built to silence, not to be silent. Difficult for a car of that size—with massive treads from the father’s side and a tapered front end more reminiscent of the mother’s curvaceous body—to move with any sort of stealth. There is a turret mounted on the top, a small missile launcher poking out of the front. Kylo is loath to use those weapons without great purpose. If he finds himself staggeringly outnumbered, or his enemies are similarly armed and armored, then a firefight is warranted. If not, the retractable baton at his belt will get the job done.

Kylo picks up the PreservBag that has been riding next to him on the passenger’s seat. He opens the door, swings one foot out and then the other, finding the soft, hot desert sand with his boots. He presses his hand over his left side, which still pains him, then touches his baton for security. In all directions he sees only rolling golden dunes. The wind is but a mild breeze now, from the south south-east, but it will pick up soon. He adjusts the mask he wears over his face, which protects his skin and filters out particulates. The land here was scorched barren by the changing climate, not by man-made weapons, but every grain of sand contains trace radiation nonetheless.

They are all slowly dying, but with the mask Kylo Ren will die more slowly than everyone else. Unless he expires from thirst in the desert. A new, increasingly likely possibility, but one he had never before considered.

Perhaps he has earned it.

He rummages beneath the billowing folds of his half-cloak, which the strengthening wind seems determined to plaster to his body, for his emergency beacon, but even as he presses it he knows he’s too far out for the signal to reach anyone. Now he curses himself for having left his usual escort behind. An extra bike and a few pairs of hands wouldn’t go amiss. But the Knights didn’t need to be party to his dirty work. The task assigned to him by the Grand Leader was his and his alone.

With the slightest sigh, distorted into static by his mask, he pops the hood on his Silencer. A plume of smoke rises to greet him. Once it dissipates, he begins rooting around the engine with leather-gloved hands, looking for the source of the trouble.

As the horizon becomes hazy with the pinkish tinge of the late afternoon, he hears the rumble-hum of another vehicle approaching over the dunes. He turns, scanning them with his eyes, prepared to climb back into the Silencer and defend himself if need be, but he sees a passenger vehicle: a small all terrain sand bike with an attached sidecar drifting alongside. In the car sits a large man, perfectly content to be ferried around by the slim youth mounted on the sand bike. Both faces are covered by goggles and scarves against sun and sand.

Kylo stops rummaging around in the engine and wipes oil and grime from his gloves. He draws himself up to his full—impressive—height, and awaits his mismatched visitors. His dark clothing renders him a vision of shadow against the desert sun, but it’s also baking him alive, and he can’t pull his mask off to wipe the sweat from his brow.

The bike skids to a halt a few yards from where Kylo stands. The youth kills the engine, then looks Kylo over. Something about Kylo must offend him. His back straightens and, in lieu of uttering any word of greeting, he dismounts the bike and trudges over to the Silencer, crouching down to study its treads.

“Boy!” the man in the car calls, but the boy pays him no heed. Grumbling something about the boy’s obstinance and uselessness, the man eases himself out of the car, slaps his hands on his meaty thighs, and stands. He is as tall as Kylo, or taller, but not nearly as quick to move. Kylo knows his own speed and training will give him the advantage if it comes to a fight.

But he does not think it will go that way. The man eyes Kylo through his goggles, and asks, “Who are you?”

Kylo had anticipated this question. He keeps his hands visible as he undoes the top of his leather jacket below his chest and peels it open. Inside is stitched a red-bordered crest, a symbol that anyone should recognize, a symbol that marks Kylo as an Enforcer.

The man’s eyes widen behind tinted lenses. “This is an— unexpected surprise, sir,” he says, in a tone that suggests he is unsure whether to be happy or troubled. Kylo notes that this man does not recognize the red border marking him as a _Chief_ Enforcer, the correct term of address being “my Lord,” but it doesn’t much matter this far out.

“For me as well,” Kylo assures him. “A breakdown. As soon as my vehicle is fixed I’ll be on my way.”

“Hm.” The man lapses into silence. Kylo knows these types— local bosses often pick up the slack in regions where the Great Leader’s reach is weak, and this man is assessing how to turn Kylo’s sudden appearance into profit.

“Tricky thing, a ride like that,” he says at last. “Custom piece?”

“Built to my specifications,” Kylo replies, trying not to sound too proud. He doesn’t want this man having goons strip the Silencer for parts, although woe betide him if he tries. “Forget the repairs. I’ll use your sat phone.”

“Don’t have one,” the man grunts. “Not a settlement with a sat phone for a hundred miles. We’ll get some tow cables out, haul it back to Nemo.” He holds out his hand. “Unkar Plutt.”

“Ren,” says Kylo. He doesn’t take the proffered hand, and eventually Plutt lowers it.

“Well, it is my honor, of course,” Plutt says in an attempt to recover. Then he bellows, “Boy!”

The youth comes trotting over from the Silencer, leaving light footprints on the dune that are quickly swept away by the rippling breeze. He comes to stand next to Plutt, arms folded. His eyes are concealed by the goggles he wears, his mouth by the scarf wrapped around his head that protects him from buffeting sands, but Kylo is certain that he is pouting.

If Plutt cares, he does not let it show. Instead, he says, “We will repair this man’s vehicle free of charge, in recognition of his service as an Enforcer.”

Muffled by the scarf, the boy protests, “But—”

“And I’ll have no guff from _you_ , boy,” Plutt says. Kylo half-expects him to cuff the boy’s head, or tweak his ear, but he does no such thing. Instead, he turns back to Kylo. “I’m afraid we will have to charge for the parts.”

His regret is so obviously feigned that Kylo barely feels more than a slight stir of irritation. “That so?”

“Materials are difficult to come by this far into the desert, and—”

Kylo holds up a hand, and the man stops talking. “The Order will pay,” he says. “Show me to my lodgings.”

He doesn’t miss the gleam of triumph in Plutt’s eye. “The boy will escort you there. Won’t you, boy?”

A faint sigh causes the boy’s scarf to puff out in front of his mouth. He jerks his head, then turns his back on Kylo and treks over to the sand bike. Kylo follows, pulling his cloak tight to him against the winds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo decides from his observations that he cannot see the boy as the type to instigate fights, or to be fought over. He very much wants to be left alone.
> 
> Or maybe he just wants Kylo to leave him alone. And as long as he obeys the law, Kylo will oblige him.

There is next to nothing in the outpost of Nemo, a settlement named for nobody and home to no one. The man called Plutt seems to have a monopoly of what little there is: the small auto-repair workshop; the fueling station; the sole two-story inn; and the bar, which is situated on the ground floor of said inn, like a fabled medieval tavern. The outpost seems to mostly exist as a stopover for long-haul truckers crossing from the coast to the inner basin, the shrinking band of fertile green valleys threatened by permafrost above and desert below.

The boy rides his sand bike back to town with Kylo folded up in his sidecar. Once he puts it in park and plants the kickstand in the sand, he enters the bar and gives a few men their orders concerning the Silencer. The men obey the boy as though he’s Plutt’s lieutenant and they are bedraggled but obedient soldiers, vacating their table to head to their trucks. The boy doesn’t say a word to Kylo, but looks over his shoulder to make sure he’s following. For lack of anything else to do, Kylo follows.

Now that they are inside and shielded from the lingering environmental radiation, the boy partially uncovers his face, pushing his goggles up onto his forehead and pulling the scarf down from his nose and mouth. Kylo catches a glimpse for the first time when the boy stops before one of the many identical wooden doors and considers it. He has large green-brown eyes, dark and clever, and a small delicate nose, a thin mouth fixed in a straight line. His face is young, although not so young for him to truly be a boy. He must be in late adolescence, or early adulthood; Kylo would guess eighteen or nineteen. Not old enough to have shed his lankiness or for his face to have completely lost its childhood fat, but perhaps old enough to have made the donation required of all men.

Without speaking, the boy removes a key card from his pocket and taps the scanner to unlock the door, then opens it for Kylo, who steps inside. There is not much to the room. Bureau, bed—twin bed—nightstand, lamp. Kylo has thrown prisoners in more luxurious cells. But this is all he has in the way of accommodation, so he must make the best of it.

“It’ll do,” he says, although the boy had not asked for his approval. He removes his own mask, depressing the releases behind his ears. That first unfiltered breath is always a relief. Even this dry, desert air feels spontaneous and fresh. He shakes his head once to toss his hair from his forehead, where it had been adhered by his drying sweat.

He looks over for the boy, surprised to not only see that he hasn’t moved, but to find him staring, wide-eyed, at Kylo’s face. It is possible that this young man has never seen someone Kylo’s age—nearly thirty—with skin so unmarred or unbroken, or perhaps he is surprised, as some are, by Kylo’s nose, a proud, obtrusive landmark in the middle of his face. But there is something more in the furrow of the boy’s brow that Kylo finds troublesome.

“Yes?” he asks.

Redness spreads across the boy’s cheeks— anger or mortification at having been called out on his rudeness, Kylo assumes. The boy tosses the keycard at Kylo and leaves the room. The last Kylo hears of him is the thunk of his footsteps on the stairs.

Kylo blinks, unsure of what just happened, before chalking it up to an adolescent attitude problem on the boy’s part and dismissing it. From his single window, he watches Plutt’s men tow the Silencer into town as the sun sinks below the horizon.

* * *

That night, Kylo tosses and turns on the firm mattress in the room Plutt has provided him at a “discounted” rate that still far exceeds its worth. No matter how exhausted his body is, his mind will not quiet. 

He feels the PreservBag staring at him. He loathes having it near. He wishes he could put the messy business at the southern border entirely out of his mind, but he needs to present evidence that the deed was done to the Great Leader. Still, keeping the blue and white bag close doubles his restlessness and seems to make the wound in his side throb with more urgency. Kylo sets his jaw and glowers at it, as though he can break its hold over him through sheer force of will.

“If you’re going to talk, then talk,” he tells the bag. It says nothing.

Eventually he climbs out of the bed and turns the bag around so it faces the wall. Then, and only then, is he able to fall into a light and fitful sleep.

* * *

The next morning, after partaking of the gruel that serves as breakfast here, Plutt insists that Kylo rest at the inn while the boy works on his vehicle. Kylo begins to protest—after all, the Silencer is of his design, and he has made some unique modifications—but Plutt won’t hear it. “I will not have the Great Leader’s man lift a finger in this town. The boy will handle it.” And then he barks, “Boy!”

So Kylo spends much of the day seated in the bar, watching the nameless youth work his way around the Silencer, which is visible through the open doors of the garage across the way. The boy sticks his head under the hood, pokes at the treads, brings out a clever assortment of tools to tweak and prod. Covered from head to toe, but dressed lightly in well-bleached linens and cottons, he is a blur of white against the massive black Silencer, which is easily half again his height. He seems to know his way around vehicles, Kylo will give him that.

Kylo has never shied away from work, but he doesn’t mind the opportunity to rest. The past three days have been nonstop travel from the site of his previous mission. Now, safely sheltered in the well-sealed bar, Kylo foregoes his filtering mask to sip at a cold beer, one of the few comforts available in this small desert settlement. The other is a pay-to-view virtual reality simulator. Its head-mounted display is being passed around between three grizzled truckers who give Kylo a wide berth, noting the make of his clothing and correctly concluding that he is not one of them. Likewise, Kylo forgoes their company and continues to spectate the Silencer’s repairs from afar.

Kylo is surprised to see a boy that age here at all. The population is sparse enough that the odds seem against any seed sent off to the Eden Houses bearing fruit. He thinks at first that the boy might be Plutt’s son, but Plutt scoffs at the very idea.

“Nobody’s son,” he grunts. “He does odd jobs for me. That’s all.”

An orphan, then. “So he lives here?”

“He’s more trouble than he’s worth,” says Plutt. “But he’s the best Fixer this side of the Western Ridges. If he wasn’t so useful, I’d have already kicked him out.”

Try as he might, Kylo can’t figure out what Plutt means by “trouble.” As far as he can see, the boy keeps to himself. He doesn’t come inside the bar except to fetch his lunch, barely speaks when he does, and eats in the Silencer’s shadow.

There is a strange grace to the way the boy moves. Even when he hikes himself up onto the roof of the Silencer, it appears near-effortless, as though he’s gliding on an updraft. He walks with a straight back but a slight swishiness to his hips, as a dancer might. Kylo wonders idly if the boy is a homosexual. For lack of anything better to do, he turns over in his mind the look the boy had given him when he removed his mask the previous evening. It might have been attraction, those wide eyes, that spreading blush he had taken for fury.

But that shouldn’t cause trouble unless the boy is disrupting the order of things by stringing lovers along, causing fights. Homosexuality is neither penalized nor stigmatized now, not as it historically had been. In fact, with women in their walled gardens, sexual activity between men is considered a fairly mundane thread in the tapestry of society, although Kylo himself has never indulged. Perhaps attitudes are different this far south. Where Kylo comes from, it only matters that everyone who can makes the donation. Whatever is done outside of that is no one’s business.

Regardless, Kylo decides from his observations that he cannot see the boy as the type to instigate fights, or to be fought over. He very much wants to be left alone.

Or maybe he just wants Kylo to leave him alone. And as long as he obeys the law, Kylo will oblige him.

* * *

It is late afternoon when the boy marches into the inn. He declares to Plutt, who is working behind the bar, “It overheated. Water pump’s busted, and I suspect a radiator leak, too.”

“That’s fixable,” Kylo says.

The boy glances at him, but says to Plutt, “I can try to patch the leak, but the whole thing might need replacing.”

“Hmm.”

“Money is no object,” Kylo reminds him.

Plutt nods. “You heard the man.”

“I’ll see to it in the morning,” the boy says. Then he pauses, shifts his weight where he stands, and addresses Kylo directly for the first time. When he speaks, his smooth tenor brims with cautious curiosity. “It’s a unique vehicle. I’ve never seen an Enforcer ride in one of those before.”

“It’s my own design,” says Kylo, allowing himself some measure of pride. This might be an opportunity for him to correct the matter of his title, but he leaves it be.

“It’s—” The boy’s eyes flicker to Plutt again. “Unconventional.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t say that was a compliment,” the boy huffs. He picks up a meal pouch from the bar and stomps through the front door. Kylo hears the sand bike rumble to life shortly after as he takes off for wherever he spends the night.

Plutt shrugs at Kylo, as if to ask, “What are you gonna do?”

* * *

Kylo lingers in the bar even after he finishes his supper. Once it has emptied out, he allows his curiosity to get the better of him, and walks over to the corner where the virtual reality rig is set up. He slides a coin into the slot to reboot the computer, then picks up the head-mounted display and slips it over his eyes, tugging on the elastic band to adjust it.

It takes a moment, and a whirring from the computer tower, but the simulation winks to life. He is seated on what appears to be a maroon armchair in some sort of log cabin. A blazing fire flickers with life in the fireplace.

And there, lying on the fur of some animal long-extinct, is a woman.

The woman is in her late twenties, buxom and blonde. Her lips are painted red, and her hair falls in golden waves over her shoulders. She is propped up on her side, looking up at him. Her womanliness is not left to the imagination; she wears very little, and he can see the promise of softness and warmth in her bare skin.

“Hi there, stranger,” she purrs. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Kylo removes the HMD.

To conserve power, he shuts the simulation down manually before it can run its course. He cannot fault the truckers for clustering around the machine. After all, this is the closest any of them will get to a real woman. Something as important as reproduction can no longer be left to passion and chance. But the blonde in the simulation holds no temptation for Kylo.

Better for him to possess no knowledge of something he can never have, to live in ignorant bliss, than to constantly crave the impossible.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do your worst,” Rey says. “Lying to an Enforcer’s a beating crime. I know that much. I can take a beating. Get it out of your system, and we’ll be done here.”

“There’s a radiator leak for sure,” the boy announces the next day, at noon.

Then, the following morning: “I’ve replaced the thermostat and a couple of your radiator hoses, but your belt is cracked. It shouldn’t take long to switch it out.”

And in the late afternoon, just before dinner: “When I was replacing the belt, I noticed that your alternator’s on the fritz. I’ll need to take a closer look.”

Each time Kylo says coolly, “I understand.”

And he does understand. So after the boy finishes his work for the evening, Kylo Ren strides across the sands to the garage where the Silencer is being kept. He gives it a quick but canny examination— he knows his creation like the back of his own hand, better than anyone else ever could. The equipment and provisions in the trunk show some signs of being rifled through, but everything is accounted for. Good. Even this Plutt wouldn’t be so bold. He climbs into the front seat and turns the key in the ignition, and the Silencer comes to life around him, its engine awakening with a healthy purr.

He knows. He would always know. There’s nothing wrong with the Silencer. There was, but there isn’t now.

Without saying a word, without even shaking his head, Kylo kills the ignition and climbs out of the vehicle. He begins the mental calculations: how much fuel is left in the tank; how many miles to the next outpost; how long it will take him to traverse that distance in the cool dark of night. And then he hears the quiet shuffle of boots against the concrete floor.

Kylo moves much faster than anyone would expect of a musclebound man. He has the boy by his shirt before he can so much turn to run for the exit. With a growl, Kylo pushes him up against the wall and holds him there by his shoulders.

The boy’s back thuds as it connects with the metal, the impact forcing the air out of his lungs. His feet dangle a couple of inches off the ground.

“What are you doing?” Kylo demands. “Spying?”

The boy says nothing. His mouth arranges itself into a stubborn pout, but there fear flickers in his eyes. It’s a look that Kylo knows very well.

“You’re stalling me,” Kylo says. “I could leave now. The Silencer is fit to drive.”

The boy swallows audibly, but then he jerks his chin. “The radiator did have a leak,” he says. “Tests showed—”

“No,” says Kylo, pushing him back into the wall again. “Not until I say you can speak.”

The boy scowls, narrowing those keen green-brown eyes, but says nothing. He’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

“What was the plan?” Kylo asks. “Keep me in town, overcharge me for room and board, for parts to ‘repair’ my truck? Siphon off as much as you can from the Great Leader’s coffers?” The boy doesn’t respond. Kylo is about to shake him again, but then realizes his mistake. He commands, “Nod or shake your head.”

With some hesitation, the boy nods.

“Tch.” Kylo him looks over, head to toe. “Your idea?”

The boy shakes his head.

Kylo looks over his shoulder, back at the inn. Of course. So Plutt is the mastermind, such as it is. Not a particularly clever scheme, but effective; it’s not as though Kylo could find another Fixer, get a second opinion. More’s the pity for the boss of Nemo that Kylo Ren is not totally incompetent. He might have been delayed in this middle-of-nowhere town for a week.

He is running through the list of possible punishments for Plutt in his head when the boy says, “This might go faster if you let me talk.”

Right. The boy. Kylo turns his attention back to the boy. “You,” he says.

“Me,” the boy replies. Kylo can feel his arm muscles shaking under his hands. While the boy does sound fearful, there’s an audible note of defiance in his uneven tenor. Oddly, that small amount of resistance gives Kylo pause, and he finds it within him to admire this young person. Lesser men, _grown_ men, would, and have, wet themselves in his position.

Still, he must persist. “Do you know that lying to an Enforcer of the Order is a crime?”

The boy decides to reinvoke his silence, and rolls his eyes toward the ceiling, the epitome of recalcitrant youth.

Kylo shakes him. “Answer me, boy.”

“Rey,” the boy nearly spits.

“What?”

“My name is Rey. Not boy. If you’re going to punish me for lying to you, then you should at least get my name right.”

This close, Kylo can feel the boy—Rey’s—shallow breath on his cheek, and see that Rey’s face is unchafed by the sun and other desert dangers. He is tan, yes, but he nearly glows with freshness and vitality. No, he wasn’t raised in this nowhere town. If he had been, he would already look windburnt and ragged. Kylo’s brows draw in closer together. “You’re not doing yourself any favors.”

“Do your worst,” Rey says. “Lying to an Enforcer’s a beating crime. I know that much. I can take a beating. Get it out of your system, and we’ll be done here.”

Kylo has never had someone ask him for discipline before. Sometimes there’s begging, sometimes stoic protest. There’s the occasional dare that uses the same phrasing— “do your worst.” But never this resignation, with such resentment for the system and yet acceptance that justice must be meted out. Kylo is not sure what to do with that reaction; for reasons unknown to him, it sets him adrift. A buzzing, like that of angry insects, fills his ears.

He sets Rey down, and releases him.

For his part, Rey looks startled too. His eyes grow even wider, if possible, before he ducks his head down to examine himself and starts straightening out the overly-large white smock he wears. Kylo takes a step back from him, and says, “Plutt put you up to this. Is he paying you?”

“He’s my employer.”

“What’s your cut?”

“It doesn’t matter.” The boy shifts his weight from foot to foot. “If it were up to me, I’d have you on the road, _happily_. But it isn’t up to me.”

“It could be now.” Kylo watches him. Something about the boy troubles and intrigues him. He can’t quite put his finger on it. “I saw some of your handiwork when I was checking over the Silencer. It’s good. I would allow you to make final checks, and forego your punishment.”

Rey shrugs with one slouching shoulder, his hands in his pockets.

“You would be better compensated for your work in the Order.”

He looks up, visibly started. “With the _military_?”

“We’re always in need of good Fixers,” Kylo says. “And you’re clever. There’s a need for that, too.”

Rey presses his lips together. “I didn’t think the military sought out strong-willed, independent thinkers. Thought it was mostly brutes.”

Kylo cocks his head. “Like me?”

Rey is shrewd enough to know not to answer that question.

“It’s a career,” Kylo continues. “And it’s more of a life than wasting away at a truck stop at the edge of nowhere. You were meant for more.” He searches for the right words, and thinks of what the Great Leader might have to say about this situation. “I was meant to find you.”

“People don’t come out here because they want to be found,” says Rey, glaring as if Kylo has personally intruded upon his solitude and upended his whole life. He pushes past Kylo and walks straight out the door, leaving Kylo staring after in bemusement.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey,” says Plutt. “I see how you watch him. Careful you don’t forget what he is… and what you are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [houseoffinches](https://houseoffinches.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr drew [fanart for chapter 3](https://houseoffinches.tumblr.com/post/181856185471/destinieswritten-a-ten-minute-sketch-from)! Thank you! I think the UST definitely comes through.
> 
> I also commissioned [proporgo](https://proporgo.tumblr.com/) for art for this story, which you can find [here](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/post/181928998023/sandstorm-chapters-1-2-3-4-new-in-a)! Porgo did an amazing job, especially with their outfits. Definitely take a look— it really captures the story aesthetic™.

Kylo rises early the next morning, choosing to eat a ration bar in the privacy of his room rather than wait for the bar counter to open. He dresses, dons his mask, and heads out to the garage where the Silencer awaits him, sitting next to a few rusted trucks in various states of repair. Rey has not yet arrived in town to begin his work, so, as Kylo had planned, he has the space to himself. He retrieves his own toolkit from his trunk and begins to do a full and thorough audit of the Silencer’s systems.

Not a quarter of an hour into this diagnostic session, he hears the stuttering purr of Rey’s sand bike as it approaches the garage, which cuts off when the engine is killed. Then stomp-stomp-stomp, and the youth, in his white linens, stands beside Kylo, hands on his hips. “You’re not trusting me with those checks after all,” he says. “That’s how it is?”

Kylo, engaged in rigorous study of the Silencer’s innards, just says, “It is.”

Rey jerks his head in an almost nod. “Good,” he says. “Fine. Fix it up yourself and be on your way.”

He walks off to one of the other trucks that need attention, pulls on his work gloves, and proceeds to pointedly ignore Kylo for the rest of the morning. Kylo glances over at him, once or twice, to see him lying on his back with his feet sticking out from under his latest project, the rest of him concealed as he works.

Kylo has to admit that he is impressed by the repairs the youth _has_ made on the Silencer, be they necessary or unnecessary. His work is clean and precise, not a bolt out of place. That shows an attention to detail that Kylo must admit he himself does not possess, and he wonders again how to lure the boy into serving the Order. He would be an asset. Kylo maneuvers the pneumatic lift to allow himself access to the Silencer’s underbelly so he can begin his inspection of the parts below.

He invents enough tasks to keep himself busy. A few pneumatic lines _might_ be wearing through, so he swaps them out. He _has_ been putting off replacement of his air filter, so he sees to that as well. By the time the sun has just begun its afternoon descent, Kylo’s mouth has gone dry and his stomach begins to protest its emptiness. He steps away from the Silencer briefly to procure the usual overpriced nutritional mush from the bar.

Plutt isn’t there. A thin, weatherworn man serves Kylo in his place. Plutt’s absence unnerves Kylo, and he starts back for the garage in lieu of sitting down and eating in the inn, unwilling to leave his vehicle unattended for long. After all, Rey, or someone else, has already been through his things.

Raised voices stop him in his tracks. An argument in progress in the garage. Rather than interrupt it, he steps around to the side, shifts his food and beverage parcel to one hand, and adjusts the aural enhancers on his mask. As he suspected, the boy is engaged in an argument with Plutt.

“He’ll be gone once he’s finished his checks. Maybe tonight.”

“You told him, didn’t you?” growls Plutt. “Foolhardy piece of—”

“I didn’t say a word to him,” the boy argues back. “He figured your scam out all on his own. He’s quiet, not stupid.”

“Cost me a payout,” grumbles Plutt. “Ingrate. You’re lucky I don’t take you by the ear and drag you out to him. Just remember that.”

“Am I?” asks Rey, but there’s a waver in his voice, which goes high and nervous. “I’m sure he won’t have any questions about why you didn’t speak up before.”

Plutt seems to have nothing to say to this. Kylo leans closer to the wall to ensure that he doesn’t miss anything.

“As I said,” Rey continues, now having regained control of his vocal tone, “he’s quiet. He’s not stupid.” Then a scraping against the concrete as he turns, presumably to leave.

Rey gets a few steps in, boots crunching on the grains of sand the wind’s swept into the garage, before Plutt calls to him again. “Hey,” he says. “I see how you watch him. Careful you don’t forget what he is… and what you are.”

“I don’t _watch_ —” Rey begins, but then he stops and, deciding it’s not worth the argument, walks away. He emerges from the garage, a slim figure all in white, walks straight to his sand bike, mounts it, and takes off into the desert. He never looks back. He never sees Kylo Ren.

Kylo, meanwhile, puzzles over that conversation the rest of the afternoon, which prevents him from working as quickly as he’d like. What had Plutt meant in threatening to turn Rey in to him? Could the boy be a criminal? He seems young, but youth is no obstacle to crime. A young smuggler, perhaps. He thinks of the PreservBag in his room and feels his side wound itch. He tries to focus only on the parts of the Silencer that demand his attention.

* * *

The night is pitch black by the time Kylo decides he’s finished “working” on the Silencer for the day. It was not an entirely fruitless day; he was able to accomplish a few routine maintenance tasks that become slightly more complex when dealing with a hybrid vehicle like the Silencer. It seems as though he suddenly looks up to find that every other light in the small outpost has gone out. Sweaty and exhausted, but pleased with himself, he decides to head to the bathinghouse to scrub away the sand itching in his every crevasse.

The bathinghouse is not far from the garage. Nothing is. All of the town’s communal buildings cluster together in a knot, with rows of small dwellings pushing outward into the desert like spokes on a wheel. The bathinghouse is low to the ground and extremely visible in the moonlight, a windowless patchwork of adobe, metal, and wood. When he approaches it, he hears the quiet rush of water through a showerhead and realizes that he is not alone. Against all odds, someone else is not only awake at this awkward hour, but has also decided to wash. Well, that doesn’t bother Kylo. He’s taken plenty of communal showers. He has nothing to hide.

He steps into the changing area—a simple row of two dozen lockers with a long, low wooden bench—and begins peeling off his layers. The water from the other man’s shower shuts off automatically at the two and a half minute mark. He hears a quiet, breezy sigh, and then the padding of footsteps on the slick tile floor, the gurgle of water disappearing down the drain to be recycled for future use. Kylo busies himself with unbuckling his boots as his unexpected companion rounds the corner—

And screams a short, high, piercing scream.

Kylo’s head jerks up immediately, and he sees a white flash as the boy pulls a towel up to cover his—

Oh.

No, Rey is not a boy at all.

Unsure of what to do, Kylo turns his head away. He finds himself paralyzed on the bench. It would be within the scope of his duty to arrest— her, but he is unable to move. His brain is having some difficulty processing what he’s just seen, the shortest glimpse of a triangle of curls at the juncture of her thighs, her small breasts with their nipples erect from the shower. There is a clang as Rey opens her locker, a frantic rustling as she begins to dress.

“What—” she begins. Her voice is higher, and Kylo realizes that she’s been pitching it low in conversation with him and everyone else. “Why are you here?”

“To wash,” says Kylo. His voice feels strange, gravelly in his throat.

“Yes, I—” He can picture her face going red, her cheeks flushed. Those delicate features, the lack of hair on her face, it all makes more sense now. “It’s late.”

“I know.”

Silence. She seems at a loss for words. Kylo keeps his eyes averted, keeps his hands on his thighs. He doesn’t know what else to do. His mind keeps flickering back to the quick glimpses of her naked skin— pale where she shields it from the elements, freckled where desert sun has toasted it, and so much more interesting and textured than in any simulation he’s ever glimpsed through an HMD.

The rustling stops sooner than he thought it would, and then the footfalls he hears are changed by her boots. She walks around the bench to stand in front of him. Kylo continues looking down at his own boots, ignoring the blurry outline of her hips and thighs in front of him, pretending he hadn’t seen what cannot be unseen. Even seated on the low bench, with his head bowed, his eyes are nearly level with her chest.

There is a voice in his head, the Great Leader’s, scolding him for the tremble in his shoulders at having been so exposed to female flesh, for being so cowed by a skinny thing like Rey. He should stand and seize her, use his authority to commandeer a vehicle, and drag her back to one of the Eden Houses where she belongs.

Rey seems to be aware of this possibility. She asks him, voice hard and strained, “Are you going to arrest me?”

“I should,” he tells her.

“But will you?”

Kylo Ren swallows, and one of his hands curls into a fist on his thigh. Static fills his ears; he sees the shape of her body draw back from him. He inhales, exhales.

Then he looks up, and says her name.

“Rey.”

She is already gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the last chapter a few people wondered what Rey's been thinking through this story. Well, you guys are in luck! The incredibly talented [selunchen](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/) and I collaborated on [a little sandstorm comic](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/post/181961649638/a-little-behind-the-scenes-of-rey-in-sandstorm) that shows Rey around chapter 2 or 3 of this story. Selina did awesome work on this— go show her a lot of love. ♥

This dire situation _could_ warrant Kylo Ren exercising the full might of his Enforcer authority. He _could_ assume control of the outpost, imprison Rey, and interrogate every single permanent resident to see who is aiding and abetting her. At the least, Plutt must know.

Now that Kylo knows, he sees the disguise as the somewhat flimsy thing it is, mostly dependent on none of the men in this town having seen a live person with two X chromosomes in at least a decade and a half. Rey is not a soft, supple, sumptuous girl like the one he had glimpsed in the VR simulator. She is narrow, and work-hardened, and her curves are subtle. He lies in bed after his sorely needed shower thinking of the gentle swell of her breasts, and the mere memory makes his face hot, and stirs something long-neglected near his pelvis. He rolls over onto his stomach and buries his face in his pillow.

He does not know if Rey will come back to Nemo after their encounter. He thinks she might flee in the night, never to return again. It would be the sensible thing. On the off-chance she does show herself, though, he spends half the morning sitting on the bench outside of the garage, sweltering in the sun.

The dunes seem to bend and blur in the distance, but he keeps his eyes trained on them, in the direction from which Rey usually comes. Finally, he sees her: just a small white shape on a dark red sand bike, weaving between mounds of sand, trying to stay out of sight. Eventually she brings the bike to a halt within his view, then adjusts some sort of dial on the side of her goggles. And he knows, somehow he knows, that she sees him too.

He stands to acknowledge that he has seen her. She is still little more than a distant speck, but he’s spent enough time watching her that he can imagine her straddling the bike, primed to flee, all her muscles tensed like coiled springs.

Kylo simply turns and walks back into the garage.

A few minutes later, he hears her bring the sand bike into the outpost and shut off its engine. Then another minute of silent hesitation while she tries to figure out what to do about him. Kylo allows her to have it, and pretends to be deeply engrossed in work on the Silencer, even though he has trouble thinking of anything more engrossing than the enigma of a woman standing only a few yards behind him.

Even when she approaches him, she keeps her distance. Her voice is pitched low again, when she speaks to him. “You haven’t taken me in.”

“No.”

She says nothing. He turns his head to find her face fully covered, her head cocked as she studies him. Then she nods, and goes on her way.

* * *

The next day, Kylo’s well of excuses-to-stick-around-Nemo finally runs dry. He decides that he’d better keep a closer eye on his possessions, and winds up staying indoors, alternating between his room and the bar. These people already went through his things in the Silencer, and the PreservBag, his evidence, cannot be discovered. That will lead to questions he does not want to answer.

He passes some time playing with the settings on the VR simulator. The woman does not always have to be buxom and blonde, obviously. When he turns it on this time, she has dark hair and yellow cat-like eyes. Intriguing. He picks up the controller and scrolls through options until he is able to select the characteristics he wants: a small chest, brown hair with coppery highlights, hazel eyes, a smattering of freckles across the nose. The simulator’s menu promises 34 languages and 72 accents, and he is able to find one that approximates the voice he would like to hear.

This time, he sits back in the chair and allows the situation to play out. His dream woman greets him from her fur rug, murmurs her enticements. He does not respond; that is not his role here. He is meant to be the passive observer, and her the temptress. Kylo watches as she turns over onto her back, slides her hands over the soft dunes of her breasts, the uncovered skin of her belly. Then she turns over again, onto her front, feet kicking out behind her as she continues to carry on a one-sided dialogue with him. He feels slightly uncomfortable—those seductive gestures don’t suit this body—but not enough to stop watching.

When she rises from the rug and begins sauntering over to where he sits, the simulation freezes and prompts him to put in another coin. Kylo lets out a frustrated growl.

“Ren.”

There’s the voice. He squints, thinking the simulation has started up again on its own, until the voice says with slightly more urgency, “ _ Ren _ .”

Heart pounding, Kylo pulls off the head-mounted display.

The real Rey stands before him, hands on her hips, scarf and goggles covering her face. “You still haven’t taken me in.”

He feels that he must be blushing, but tries to maintain his composure regardless. In his peripheral vision, he notices Plutt watching them with beady eyes.

He says, “No.”

“Huh.”

Kylo looks at her. He doesn’t say anything else, which only seems to frustrate her further. He can’t make out her expression, but her posture is rigid, and she flings her arms down by her sides.

“Fine,” she says. “It’s your funeral.”

He shrugs. The penalty for harboring a woman illegally is prison time, or death. But it hadn’t been on his mind.  “Unless you plan on announcing yourself to the entire town, it’s no one’s funeral.”

Rey huffs and goes to the bar. Kylo occupies himself by adjusting the HMD’s strap, although a bit sheepishly since she must be aware of what the queued-up simulation entails. Keeping his hands busy allows him to continue to covertly observe her, and to notice that, twice, she looks back his way.

* * *

The next day the wind begins to pick up in the early afternoon. There is a murmur of discontent among the denizens of Nemo, who sense a brewing sandstorm without even having to consult their weather instruments. The permanent residents head back to their dwellings early; the transients, Kylo included, shelter in place at the inn.

“It’ll be a strong one,” Plutt tells Kylo, as he hands him his habitual afternoon beer. “Hopefully out of here fast. Could be clear by morning.”

Kylo nods and sips his beer. He has weathered a handful of storms in his life, but has very little to contribute to the conversation.

Plutt eyes him, and says, “I’m sure you’re eager to get going.”

Something about his tone catches Kylo’s attention, and he looks sideways at Plutt. But of course, Plutt must be on edge. He has been aware for days that Kylo knows he’s running a criminal scheme— defrauding customers, including one of the Grand Leader’s own Enforcers. And he is likely also keenly aware of the fact that there have not yet been any repercussions for his infractions. Enforcers aren’t known for their leniency, so Plutt must be waiting for the other shoe to drop. And because Kylo has been preoccupied, he didn’t see it before.

He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say a word the door opens with an alarming slam, calling both their attentions. And there is Rey, struggling to push it closed. The wind resists, howling threateningly behind her and sending grains of sand scattering into the bar, but she digs her heels in and manages to seal the inn off once more.

“Best be running home, boy,” Plutt warns. “Storm’s rolling in.”

“I got that,” says Rey. But instead of following this very sensible advice, she marches right up to Kylo and tells him, “We need to talk.”

Kylo vacates his stool immediately and follows Rey into an empty corner of the bar. Once she seems satisfied that they won’t be overheard, she pushes up her goggles, pulls her scarf down from her mouth, and says in an undertone, “This is treason, you know.”

“I know,” he says.

Her mouth presses together in a thin line. “So why haven’t you done it? Why haven’t you taken me in?”

“Do you want me to?”

“No.”

“Because it sounds like you  _ want _ me to take you in.”

“I don’t.”

He turns his face away. “Then we don’t have a problem.”

Rey opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again, like a stranded fish gasping for water. Her brows draw in and her nostrils flare, causing her nose to crinkle in a way that is strangely endearing. Kylo pretends not to notice the expression or how oddly adorable it is. It amazes him that such a slight creature can contain so many emotions: so much confusion, indignation, and rage.

Finally, she says, “I don’t understand you, and it’s driving me  _ mental _ .”

He picks his head up and holds her gaze. “That makes two of us.”

Rey does something unexpected, then: she recoils from him. “What’s so difficult to understand about me?”

“What—” Kylo leans down toward her and keeps his voice low. “You grew up in a paradise, then ran from it. You choose to live here. Nowhere.”

“A paradise,” she scoffs. “That’s what you believe?”

“That’s what they are compared to life outside. A place to sleep, regular meals, gardens. And they’re completely safe.”

She crosses her arms. “Completely  _ safe _ ? How can you say that? Haven’t you been to one?”

Kylo frowns and shakes his head.

“No— what do you mean, ‘no?’”

“I’ve only seen the outside walls of an Eden House. I’ve never stepped foot in one. It’s forbidden.”

He watches emotions flash across her face— confusion, comprehension, confusion again. And then she grabs his arm in an attempt to pull him away somewhere, apparently disregarding that he is much heavier than her and not easily moved. “Come on.”

“What?”

“We can’t talk about this here,” she says, glancing over her shoulder at Plutt at the bar, polishing glasses and definitely attempting to eavesdrop. A couple of Nemo’s other temporary residents converse over one of the tables; another is partaking in the VR simulation, his lips slightly parted. It’s not a place for any conversation of a sensitive nature, much less one that might involve raised voices. “Upstairs. Come on.”

Kylo nods and allows her to tug him over to the stairs that lead to the second floor rooms. It dawns on him then, as the sky outside darkens, that he may know the reason he hasn’t taken her in.

He’s curious about her.

Perhaps in having his curiosity sated, he will find his duty easier to uphold.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Could you sit down, please?” Rey asks, tonelessly. “This is going to take a while, and you’re making me nervous standing there like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be aware that the darker elements of this AU are most explicitly referenced in this chapter. There are direct mentions of forced pregnancy and allusions to systemic sexual abuse (not involving Rey or Kylo Ren). Proceed as you wish, just go in prepared!

Rey leads him to his own room, which feels much smaller and stuffier with two of them sharing the space. As she closes the door, Kylo looks around, trying to figure out what to do with himself. Excepting the other night at the bathing house, he’s never been alone with a woman before, and is unsure of the correct etiquette. He eventually positions himself by the window opposite the door, which rattles a bit as the wind outside picks up speed.

He does not ask Rey if she needs to leave to beat the storm. He figures after living in this wasteland for however long, she can be her own judge of that. Instead, he watches as she paces across the floorboards, tugging the hems of her sleeves down over her wrists.

“You’ve never been to an Eden House?” she blurts out at last. “Not one time?”

Once again, Kylo shakes his head. “As I said, I’ve seen them from the outside. I’ve had to escort a few women who were being smuggled outside the border back—” Here Rey lets out a fluttery little sound, one he doesn’t understand. It’s almost a keen of pain. He tilts his head as he looks at her. “I’ve seen the treetops. I’ve smelled the fruits grown there. I know they’re paradises.”

“That’s what you’ve been told,” she mutters.

“I know it. The Great Leader—”

“I don’t want to hear that name!” Rey exclaims, so forcefully that Kylo almost takes a step back from her. She inhales, collecting herself somewhat, then drags a hand down the side of her face. “Could you sit down, please?” she asks, tonelessly. “This is going to take a while, and you’re making me nervous standing there like that.”

He obliges her, crossing to the bed in two long strides and sitting on it. It’s low to the ground, and his legs are folded at a slightly uncomfortable angle, but he is used to discomfort, and he ignores it, waiting for her to speak.

“Fine, yes,” Rey begins. “It’s true that we have trees, and fruit. It’s true that we get real meals, not the gruel that’s served here. And we have places to rest our heads, and books. And we are educated, but only to a point. Only so we can take our aptitude tests— do you know about those?”

Kylo catches himself about to shake his head again, so he simply replies, “No.”

“Tch.” She crosses her arms. “They’re part of the way we’re matched with potential ‘donors.’ They’re meant to measure intelligence in different areas— mathematics, communication skills, spatial awareness. So it’s that, plus our gene sequences, plus…” She takes a breath. “I’m not— I’ve never had to tell anyone this before. I know I’m not going in order. I just…”

Indeed, the entire situation is still as clear as mud. Kylo may know more about her upbringing, but nothing she described so far has sounded all that terrible to him. He leans forward and asks, quietly, “Why did you leave?”

She startles, and turns her head toward him as if she’d somehow forgotten his presence in the room. He hadn’t realized how skittish she was, how this life of deceit must necessitate it. “First of all, I shouldn’t have to spend my whole life on my back giving birth to one baby after another,” she snaps. “Sometimes more than one at a time. That’s horrible. And— it’s painful.”

Kylo blinks. “It’s your duty to your species.”

“According to who?”

“The Great Leader—”

Rey throws up her hands. “Who died and left him in charge?”

“Rey,” he cautions.

He can tell she’s being intentionally difficult. She must know the answer, as everyone does. There was the Cataclysm, and then society tried to rebuild itself, but the population had been so decimated and then, for reasons no one could understand, the birth rate began to skew toward men. The Great Leader had been the only person to step forward with a solution. It had been viewed as radical, in its time, but gradually even non-believers came to see the wisdom in it.

But she must know that. It’s in all the histories, written and oral.

“I just don’t want that to be my life,” Rey continues. “To have a man’s— donation put into me, and wait to see if it takes, and in the meantime tend to the gardens, or do some light calculation work, knit and weave and keep my hands busy. Then do it over again. To stay inside that walled garden my whole life, and to… waste away. Because that’s what would have happened to me.”

“This is selfish thinking,” he says, but his voice wavers, and he knows he sounds unconvincing. The truth is, he’s never thought of it in that way before. He’s never thought much of the Eden Houses, nor considered what life must be like inside one. “You have to do your part, so your sons and daughters…”

“I’m happy to have children, but I want to have a real life, too. And I don’t want my daughters, if I have any, growing up inside those walls, having those injections, or worse—”

“The process is minimally invasive,” Kylo asserts, mustering as much confidence as he can in the Great Leader’s teachings. “What do you mean worse?”

Rey lets out a sharp, cynical bark of laughter. “As if you don’t know.”

He frowns. “Know what?”

“If you, being who you are, believe all that ‘minimally invasive’ twaddle, I don’t know what to tell you.”

“It’s not what I believe. It’s what happens.”

She cocks her head at him. “Have you stepped up? Done your civic duty? You’re more than old enough.”

Kylo’s frown deepens, but he shakes his head, ignoring the barb. He had, of course, undergone genetic testing at eighteen, same as any bearer of XY chromosomes. And his genome had proved resilient, mostly uncorroded by radiation. But there was the small issue of insanity on his grandfather’s side, so he had been given temporary reprieve from his duty by the Great Leader, with the caveat that he may later be called upon to donate. As of now, his gametes do not reside in the national bank.

But all he says to Rey is, “No.”

Rey fidgets with her hands, and then she says, “Well, when you do, I’m sure you’ll find the reality different than you expect. A man of your rank, and all.”

He stares at her. “You can’t mean—”

“They’ll choose a mate for you, based on compatibility.” Her voice wavers, then hardens, and she looks not at him, but through. “Or maybe not. Maybe just looks. Or preference. Your preference. You’ll get let inside one of the Eden Houses, and you’ll be able to see to the production of a child personally.”

Kylo’s hand tightens on the mattress. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not. It’s how the world works. This one, anyway. ”

“This is,” he sputters, unable to keep a rein on his indignation. The treachery in what she suggests! He stands up. “The Great Leader—”

“I don’t know him,” says Rey. “I don’t care to. I don’t know whether he knows about it or not. Just that it happens.”

Kylo is silent. His arms are stiff at his side, one hand closing into a fist. For this slander, he should _definitely_ throw her over the back of her own sand bike and turn her in at the nearest proper waypoint. But he only stands there, watching her face. And he doesn’t see deception in it.

He sits back down, and listens.

“I don’t have an agenda, Ren,” she says, sounding weary now. “I’m not part of any rebel cell. I can only speak to my experiences. What I’ve learned and heard and seen.”

“I’m sure whatever has been done was done for the survival of the species,” Kylo says, but as soon as the words leave his mouth they ring hollow with wrongness. He can’t imagine what reason there might be for visiting the women personally, for violating their trust and the sanctity of their mission to repopulate the world.

“That’s easy for you to say, sitting over there,” Rey remarks, sardonically. “You’ve never heard the whispers between girls. You’ve never had to hold one of your older friends—someone you thought was a pillar of your world—as she cried on your shoulder. And you’ve never seen them come, in black. Always in black. Like you.” She pauses, then adds, “I thought at first that the visits were the only thing wrong with the system, but once you start looking… you find the flaws everywhere.”

Each one of her words is like a blow that sends him reeling. Kylo braces himself, waiting to see if more will come.

It does. Rey hugs her arms over her chest, and looks away from him. “My best friend in the House was Rose. Her sister was older than us by five years, old enough to bear children, and unfortunate enough to be very beautiful. So— we knew. And we made a plan to escape, the three of us. Rose made it all the way down to the southern border, I think. I got separated from her. And her sister…”

She trails off ominously, going a bit pale. Kylo stands. The mattress creaks at the loss of his weight, and the noise makes Rey turn toward him again.

“I am sorry,” he says, taking a hesitant step forward. “For what it’s worth. I assume not very much.”

“Tch,” she says again, but it sounds wet, and sad.

“I’ll inform the Great Leader,” he assures her. “Use my position to put a stop to this practice. It can’t be allowed to continue.”

Her large eyes search his face. “You’re a true believer,” she says, and there’s either awe or disbelief in her voice.

“He took me in, when my family… deserted me, while fleeing the country,” he says. She’s told him so much; he feels that he can tell her this, in return. “I was eight. I believe in his design. This, what you’re saying, is— a corruption. It’s not the way things should be.”

She walks toward him, two quick steps, much lighter than his atop the wood floor. Outside, the wind picks up speed, whistling in gusts. Kylo doesn’t know whether night has fallen or sand has blotted out the sun, nor does he care. He finds himself concerned only with the luminosity of Rey’s skin.

“You really do want to help me,” she marvels. “Why?”

In trying to find the words to respond to her, Kylo brings up one of his hands. He catches her scarf and tugs it down from her neck.

That amount of contact startles her. He startles himself, too, with his boldness, and returns her wide-eyed, curious stare with one of his own. “I, I,” he stammers. “Sorry.”

Rey doesn’t respond, not right away. She studies him for a long, tense moment. Then she takes her scarf and pulls it off over her head, freeing her hair. It’s about shoulder length, and thick, as thick as his, wavy, a little matted from its constraint. She shakes her head and sweeps a hand under it to free it from her shirt collar, dropping her scarf on the floor beside her.

“There,” she says.

He says nothing. All of his words have left his mouth, have flown from the space between his ears where his brain should be. He reaches forward, instead, and runs his ungloved fingers through her hair. It’s soft. It doesn’t smell sweet, like songs or poems say, but like the barely scented shampoo that everyone at the outpost shares, and a bit of her sweat, which he finds inexplicably thrilling and intoxicating. Rey shivers under his touch, but doesn’t flee, even though all her body is rigid with the urge to do— something. He can see her jaw clench, the cords in her neck taut, and he begins to pull his hand back.

“No,” she says, catching his wrist before he can withdraw his fingers all the way. “It’s— all right. It’s just that no one’s touched me in a very long time.”

“That’s a shame.”

The words slip out of his mouth, and he is immediately mortified by them, but they seem to startle Rey into a smile. “I guess it is,” she says. “I didn’t know until just now.”

Kylo inhales. He draws his fingers through her hair, then runs them back up to her face, traces them around the shell of her ear. In front of him, below him, he hears Rey take a faint breath. He strokes down her neck, to her shirt, nudging the collar aside slightly to see what her collarbone looks like—

This time when she catches his wrist, she pulls it away. “No,” she says. “Not unless you undress first.”

He has difficulty discerning whether or not she’s serious. But he says, “All right.”

Rey blinks. “All right, then.”

“Unless you don’t—”

“I do,” she says, looking up at his face. He wonders if she feels the same tightening in her belly, the same apprehensive flutter tinged with excitement. He likes to think she does.

He says again, “All right.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He asks, “Would you— lie with me?”
> 
> It feels as though he is asking her to grant a favor he doesn’t have the right to call upon. But now he sees the color rise in her face, watches her nod again. “Yes,” she says. “I will.”

Kylo Ren has never stood naked in front of a woman before. Men, yes, in changing rooms and during physical examinations. But a woman? No. And he is not sure what to do with himself. He hopes Rey finds him pleasing to look at. He’s not sure what he would look for in a man, were he interested. What does she think of the broadness of his shoulders? Does she find his musculature attractive or is she repulsed by it? And what of the mismatched features of his face— his wide nose, full mouth? Do they complement each other in her eyes, or does she think them incongruous?

Likewise, Kylo Ren has never been able to study a real naked woman. Before the simulators, he had grown up with illustrations of women, women with round, full bosoms, hips that blossomed out from narrow waists, backsides that looked ripe and juicy, like peaches. But Rey is different. She has breasts, yes, but they’re small and subtle. The plane of her stomach is flat, and her waist is narrow but her hips are too, the curve of them gentle. Her behind is where most of her padding is, and while he would very much like to touch it he is knotted up with shyness. He keeps his hands at his sides.

Rey seems to be suffering from this particular affliction less than he is. She is the one to approach him, and she lifts one slim, callused hand, places it on his chest. He inhales, but does not tell her to stop, so she brushes her fingers across his chest, then a little ways down his sternum, below his ribs.

“I’ve seen men before,” she says, as if she can read his thoughts. “Lots of them. But I’ve never gotten to…” She trails off as her hand finds the freshly-healed wound in his side, the one that still pains him occasionally. “Oh.”

With more gentleness than he knew he had within him, he takes her wrist and moves her away from the scab, pressing her palm flat to the skin just above his navel. Rey nods, understanding, and continues her exploration of his body, running her fingers diagonally down over one hipbone to the top of his thigh, then across to the other, incidentally grazing over his pubic hair. His cock, which had already indicated an interest in these proceedings, responds as though she had touched it. Kylo feels— heady. He’s surprised there’s any blood left in his body that hasn’t gone to his cheeks or his ears or between his legs.

He asks, “Would you— lie with me?”

It feels as though he is asking her to grant a favor he doesn’t have the right to call upon. But now he sees the color rise in her face, watches her nod again. “Yes,” she says. “I will.”

Relief washes over Kylo. He has no idea what to say to her, so he says, “Thank you.”

A little closed-mouthed smile graces her lips. “You don’t have to thank me,” she says. “I want to. It’s supposed to feel good, if you do it right.”

“How do you do it right?”

“I don’t know. I just know how it’s done.”

Something swoops in his chest like a diving vulture when Rey removes her hand from him. He watches as she turns and walks to the bed, lying down on her back. She looks over at him, expectantly— apparently it’s his turn to do something.

“How is it done?”

Rey looks down at herself, then at his cock. “You put it between my legs.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s most of it. Then you move your hips around. Then you finish, and if you’re in me— that’s how a child is made. But usually it takes a few tries. That’s what the girls all said.”

Kylo approaches the bed, gets one knee up on the mattress. His eyes find the thatch of curly hair at the juncture of her thighs. Rey spreads them apart, slightly, to make herself more visible to him. He sees the pink of her vulva, her lower lips. And he swallows.

“You don’t need to be nervous,” Rey says. _She_ sounds nervous—there’s an edge to her voice—and somehow simultaneously matter-of-fact and reassuring. “I think it feels good for you no matter what.”

He nods and crawls toward her on his hands and knees. Even with so much to look at, with her eyes and her lips and her breasts and the slight concave curve of her stomach between her ribs and pelvis, his eyes keep finding the curly brown hair between her legs. There must be something more to all of this than just _that_ , than what she’s saying. He ducks down and presses his face to that hair, and Rey gasps and makes a little “oh” sound.

Everything is new, uncharted territory here. Kylo might as well be the first man, lying with the first woman. He grips her thighs with both hands and pushes them a little further apart, nuzzling his nose against her pubic bone, then down. She smells different down here, a bit like sweat, a bit musky. For reasons he cannot express, he wants to try her. He wants to know what she tastes like. So he licks her, a small lick, up the unfamiliar folds of skin.

Above him, he hears Rey hum, a pleased little hum. So he does it again.

Her taste down here is also new, salty and rich. Kylo finds that he doesn’t mind it. Licking at her makes her hum more, and soon the hums are punctuated by small, breathless, exhilarating gasps. Rey’s hand settles on his hair, petting, sometimes gripping, pulling with encouragement in a way that makes his scalp tingle, his cock throb. When he can, he glances up at her, sees her eyes closed, her mouth open. She must be enjoying this— at least, she hasn’t told him to stop.

But after a few minutes of this, she tugs more urgently at his hair, and he picks up his head. “You’re stalling,” she says.

Kylo shakes his head, although he had been, a little. He keeps thinking of what she said: it should feel good if they do it _right_. But what is _right_? She doesn’t know, and neither does he. But he positions himself above her, on hands and knees, his hips lowered to near-perfect alignment with hers. His cock, seemingly unaffected by his anxiety, stands very much at attention, ready even if he is not. Although he had a few adolescent brushes with masturbation, he doesn’t think he’s ever been so hard.

He takes his cock in his hand, bumps the head of it up against her vulva. Even this simple act sets all of his nerve endings aflame. The sandstorm is within him now, in the pit of his belly; beating winds of anticipation and excitement. “Are you sure?”

“ _Ren_ ,” she says.

Kylo doesn’t ask again. He presses into her— at first with the intent to be careful, as his limited knowledge gives him some cause to fear that he might break or tear something within her, but she’s so warm and slick and inviting that he loses his focus completely and surges forward. Rey’s nails dig into his shoulder, which lifts the fog, and he finds that he’s already most of the way inside of her. Her walls around him, the pressure from her body, the heat of her— he feels lightheaded, and squeezes his eyes shut. The pleasure is pinpricks of light bursting into nebulae behind his eyelids.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says— or tries to say. It comes out a heady moan. He tucks his head into Rey’s neck and trembles against her shoulder. At least he has enough remaining sense to keep his palms flat to the mattress, his arm muscles engaged so he doesn’t bear down on her with his full weight.

“Are you all right?” Rey asks. She sounds curious, a little strained.

He nods, nods again, then turns his face so he can mash his mouth to her ear, his nose to her hair. It feels right to be in closer contact with her. He shifts his hips forward a bit more, and she tenses under him. “Oh,” he says again. His voice sounds very far away. “Are _you_ all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.”

“But does it hurt?”

Rey sucks in a breath. “Some,” she admits, and he’s thankful for her frankness. He presses himself up to his hands and eases back out of her as she continues, “But it’s not the worst— ah— hurt, and it’s supposed to get better— _wait_ —”

All at once, she slides her hand down his back, to his waist, and pulls him into her, then pushes him away, not so far that they uncouple completely but far enough for him to feel it. The friction between them makes his breath stutter; he nearly lets another moan slip out. “Don’t stop,” she instructs. “It’ll get better.”

“Right,” he says, with uncertainty. It fascinates him, the chances this woman takes, what she’s willing to endure. He rolls his hips into her experimentally, and is briefly distracted by the way her small breasts bounce slightly when they connect.

Rey asks, “How does it, ha, feel for you?”

Kylo doesn’t know how to answer that question. It feels selfish to tell her how exquisite she is, how being buried inside of her makes him feel like he’s found the last missing piece of a puzzle, when he knows that she’s hurting. He ducks his head, concentrates on going, but going slow, in time with the push and pull of her hands. She said it would get better for her, and he finds that he wants that very much.

And he finds, also, that he can tell she’s relaxing from the faintest cues in her body. Her eyelashes flutter, her eyebrows soften away from the bridge of her nose, her mouth falls slightly open. Her grip shifts on his waist, until she’s not driving his thrusts anymore, but scratching her short nails up his back, or grabbing at his buttocks and _squeezing_ , both of which coax high, fluttering noises out of him that he didn’t know he was capable of making. Her tightness around his cock resolves into something slightly more sustainable than the delicious but unbearable pressure of when he first took her, and her faint animal grunts that follow each rock of his hips begin to crescendo into something more.

“Oh, _oh_ ,” she keens, with growing urgency. “Ren, please—” She hooks a leg over his hip. “ _Fuck_.”

There are others waiting out the storm in the inn. Kylo has forgotten that, but Rey has not. She claps her hand over her mouth to keep from being heard, and this time, she’s the one who tucks her head into his shoulder as they decide the time for gentleness is over.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he agrees, and he’s loud because she can’t be. That they’re coupling isn’t an issue; that Rey’s moans sound feminine enough to arouse suspicions most certainly is. He bucks into her harder, deeper, as she cants her hips up to receive him, as she gets her other leg up around his waist and clings to him as best she can. All he wants to know, all he has ever wanted to know, was her touch, her warmth, her welcome.

Kylo keeps fucking her, trying to get to the very core of her, until everything boils over suddenly and his hips stutter and he realizes maybe, maybe he should have been paying attention to his own body and the pressure building within him before the one last— clumsy thrust, the loud smack of his skin to hers and the heady rush of his release. He spends his seed inside of her. The one thing he has not yet given over in service of his nation he gives instead to this woman he both hardly knows and knows more intimately than any friend, or leader, or god.

He collapses atop her, then quickly rolls aside onto his back to keep from crushing her. He is short of breath, and when he looks over he sees that Rey, too, is panting, wide-eyed. Not knowing what to do, he does what feels right, and reaches out for her, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and pulls her into his chest.

She rubs her nose in the valley between his pectorals, and marvels, “You finished in me.”

“Wasteful not to,” he points out, nuzzling the shell of her ear in return. But it’s not the whole truth, and he wants to be truthful, so he adds, “And it felt… good.” A pause, then, hopefully, “For you?”

“Sticky, now.”

“Hmm.” He feels like he should be insulted for some reason, but instead he smiles against her head. “So I made a mess of you.”

She looks up from his chest. Her hair is a cloud of tangles, the whites of her eyes like moons, pupils black as the night sky ringed by the hazel of her irises. “And I you,” she points out. “A mighty Enforcer. You nearly fell apart on me, that first minute. I was worried.”

He hums, and strokes his knuckles up and down the skin of her back, between her shoulder blades. “In my long career of Enforcing,” he tells her, “I’ve never faced anything like you.”

Rey settles back down, her body tucked up against his side. For a minute or two, she is content to lay with him in silence. Then, quite suddenly, she asks, “Is your name ‘wren,’ like the bird?”

“R-E-N,” he tells her. “But it’s my surname. My forename is ‘Kylo.’”

“Kylo Ren.”

“That’s right.”

Rey considers this. She seems to be turning his name over in her mind. “I never had two names,” she muses, her head on his shoulder. “I was too young to remember what my surname was when they processed me, and of course they stripped it when I was put in the system.”

“Of course,” Kylo murmurs, although that doesn’t logically follow to him until he realizes that the caretakers must have wanted to strip the girls’ past lives away.

“But Paige was old enough to remember hers,” Rey continues. “She and Rose would whisper it to each other after lights out, so they wouldn’t forget. Tico. Rose and Paige Tico. I was so jealous. I always wanted a second name. But I guess what I really wanted was to know who I was, whether my parents gave me up or whether I had been taken from them, as Rose and Paige were.” She pauses. “Things like that.”

He shifts under her. How ironic that all she should want is a name, when he so willingly gave his up. But she just wants to know who she is, and the power to determine it. In that, he thinks, maybe they are alike.

“I wasn’t born ‘Kylo Ren,’” he confesses, for the first time, to anyone. “My parents gave me the name ‘Benjamin.’ ‘Ben,’ is what they called me. I was named for a friend of the family.”  

Rey inhales through her nose, and he watches her eyes soften closed. “Ben,” she says, rolling it around on her tongue. “Benjamin. Ben. It’s very…”

“Old-fashioned.”

She opens her eyes and tilts her face up toward his. “I was going to say ‘kind.’”

He strokes her shoulder with the pad of his thumb. “Few people have ever accused me of being kind.”

“You’ve been kind to me,” she points out. “You didn’t take me back to the House.”

“That’s what passes for kindness?”

She’s quiet for a moment, and then she says, “It’s more than I’ve ever expected of anyone, in your position. With the leverage you have on me. Plutt didn’t turn me in because I’m useful to him. You haven’t… just _because_.”

Kylo rests his nose against the crown of her head as he mulls this over. He can’t find the words for why he hasn’t taken Rey away from Nemo and put her back in one of the Houses, so he asks instead, “Why did you look at me like that, when you first saw my face?”

This time Rey picks her head up all the way and shifts her weight to her elbow so she can look right up at him. A few locks of her hair tickle his shoulder. “You remember that?”

“I thought about it for days,” he says, and then upon realizing how it sounds he quickly adds, “There wasn’t much more to think about.”

Rey smiles, and then ducks her head down to brush her lips against his cheek, as though she finds this endearing. He feels a blush blooming where she kissed him, and turns his head away. She hums, and tucks her head right up against his neck. “So you were interested in me.”

“Rey.”

“All right, fine.” He feels her head shift. “I guess— I’d never seen one of you without the mask before. An Enforcer. A _Chief_ Enforcer. I expected you to be hideous, twisted. I don’t know. Battle-scarred.” She pauses. “But you looked like an angel. One of the fallen ones in the old stories that the girls used to whisper to each other at night. It was difficult for me to reconcile that with the way I hated you so much.”

The blush is spreading, he knows, to his ears, to his chest, but Rey doesn’t remark on it. He clears his throat. “Ironic.”

“Is it?”

“You’re the one tempting me away from my vows. Or to— sin. However it goes.”

She brings up a hand, thumps his left pectoral. “I think there’s been plenty of tempting to sin on both sides here, thank you.”

“Yes.” He lets his agreement linger in the still air between them before he asks, “Can I sin with you, again?”


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There you are, _boy_ ,” Plutt sneers. “Giving him a hand, were you? With the vehicle.”
> 
> Rey stiffens. Warily, carefully, she says, “He’s— keen to leave town.”

They steal away to the garage to continue their tryst. After hastily dressing, Rey shows Kylo to a roughly-dug passageway that connects the pantry of the bar to a trap door just to the side of the tool cabinet. It and other tunnels had been constructed, she tells him, for nights such as these, when sandstorms make it impossible to travel above the ground. But few people know of them aside from her and Plutt, so it should be safe to use them.

The winds rattle the garage’s sealed metal doors, but Rey assures him that they will hold. Just in case, they climb into the Silencer and lay down together upon its backseat. Together, they rest, and they talk— Rey about her upbringing in her Eden House, Kylo about his childhood in the Fortress, and Snoke’s tutelage. They also copulate two more times: once with Kylo on top of Rey again, his hand pressed against the glass of the window; once with Rey on top, gyrating her hips, grinding down on him. That last time, she slows just as he’s getting close, and finally holds herself above him, every part of her tense and trembling as she digs her nails into his chest and lets out a long, rapturous cry.

Afterward, she lies on his chest, her head just above his steadily beating heart, her legs between his legs. She drowses there, just like that, in Kylo’s embrace. It’s a delicate thing, fragile, precious and pure. Kylo doesn’t want to sleep, because he doesn’t want to miss a moment of their time together. Even as Rey doses in his arms, he struggles to stay awake, to memorize the little wisps of hair that cling to her forehead, the smattering of freckles across her nose. Such a hard life she’s led, and yet somehow she still has enough softness inside of her to trust him, to allow him into her body.

But the act of filling her has left him spent, and he yawns against her ear, trying to contain it so as not to wake her. Rey stirs then, and seems to intuit why he’s fighting sleep. She brings her callused fingers up to his cheek and murmurs, “Ben. Rest.”

So he does, falling into a sweet and dreamless slumber, the likes of which he never thought he’d know.

* * *

In the morning, he watches as Rey binds her chest with a long, narrow scrap of cloth, pulling it tightly over her torso and forcing her small breasts flat. “Such a shame,” he tells her as she secures the cloth, leaning over to press his face against her side.

“Stop that,” she grumbles, a little sheepish. “They’re only in the way.”

“You don’t like them? I like them.”

“They are what they are. I just have to hide them.”

Kylo sighs and pulls away. She’s right, of course. They don’t live in a world where she can freely go about as she is. Small though her breasts may be, they clearly mark her as someone who cannot walk the path she has chosen.

Even as he dresses, he is thinking of a way to plead for amnesty on Rey’s behalf to the Great Leader. He imagines taking her back to the Fortress with him, and knows it won’t be easy to keep her true identity hidden. Perhaps if this union of theirs results in a healthy child, she will be forgiven for her transgressions. Perhaps he will be able to keep her safe.

Once Rey is decent, he opens the door of the Silencer and finds himself squinting into bright sunlight. The storm has passed, then. The day ahead looks clear and calm.

But he was sure that when they snuck into the garage the previous evening, the great metal doors had been shut fast against the storm. And when he brings up a hand to shield his eyes, he sees that Plutt and Nemo’s few other permanent residents have all assembled in front of the garage, waiting for them. Or perhaps just for him.

“Doing your final inspections, Ren?” asks Plutt. If Kylo were a stupider man, this might sound like nothing more than a friendly inquiry.

“Something like that,” Kylo says. He angles himself so that he can see the back door of the Silencer in his periphery. Rey hasn’t emerged yet. If he stalls long enough, she might not need to.

“Your vehicle is fixed. Best be on your way.”

“What is this?” Kylo asks, drawing himself up to his full height and affixing a glare on the assembled party. He wishes he had his mask, and not only for protective reasons. He is more menacing with it on; something less human. The overall effect should be understood regardless.

Indeed, some of the men behind Plutt murmur and draw back. Plutt flinches, but stands his ground. “Whatever trouble you’ve brought on yourself,” he says, “we don’t want it here.”

“I don’t bring trouble,” he says. “I enforce the law.”

“Is that so?”

“What are you talking about?” asks Rey, climbing out of the Silencer at last. She’s re-wrapped her scarf around her head, to hide her hair. Plutt looks at her, but doesn’t seem at all surprised to see her there. Kylo feels a pang in his chest at how she’s come to his aid.

“There you are, _boy_ ,” Plutt sneers. “Giving him a hand, were you? With the vehicle.”

Rey stiffens. Warily, carefully, she says, “He’s— keen to leave town.”

“He doesn’t seem that keen.” Plutt looks at Kylo. “Maybe he thought he could hide here until the storm blew over.”

“I don’t understand,” says Rey. “The storm only blew in yesterday.”

Plutt nods to one of the other men, who hands him something. Then, he tosses the PreservBag down in the sand in front of him. Even from where he’s standing, Kylo can see that the seal has been tampered with.

“This was in his room,” Plutt says, but not to Kylo. To Rey.

“You have no right,” Kylo growls.

“You’re on my property. I have every right.” Plutt turns his head. He keeps talking to Rey. Why does he keep talking to Rey? “I was searching for evidence, y’see. For why he was overstaying his welcome.”

It’s one step away from the truth. Plutt was probably searching for any evidence that Kylo might be gathering to build a case against him. Rey must know that. But Rey doesn’t know that instead, Plutt has found something much more damning. She takes a couple of steps forward, in the direction of the bag.

“Rey,” says Kylo. “Don’t look in there.”

“Why?” she asks. Her eyes narrow. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Just.” This is a losing battle. He can feel it. Everything is going wrong. Cold dread pools in the pit of his stomach, numbs his fingers. “Trust me.”

Rey gives him a sideways glance that he doesn’t think he deserves. She trusted him with her body. Why, why shouldn’t she trust him with this? But for whatever reason—perhaps because he told her she should—she doesn’t. With defiance, she stalks toward the bag.

When she peers in, her hand flies to her mouth.

“You cast your lot in with him,” Plutt tells her, “you’d better know what kind of creature you’re dealing with.”

Rey’s eyes widen. This is a sane reaction, Kylo knows. It’s what any person would do. But it hurts beyond hurt, seeing that expression on her face. “Who— who is that?” she asks, her voice shaky.

Kylo doesn’t answer.

“ _Ren_ ,” she says, firmly now. A demand. “Who is that?”

He sighs. The full weight of over two decades in the service of the Great Leader suddenly feels very heavy upon his shoulders. He says, “A smuggler. He was running operations at the southern border, moving contraband into the country. And women out, we suspected— but we could never prove it.”

Rey takes a step backwards, but keeps her eyes fixed on him. She knows that isn’t the whole truth. He can tell by the look on her face.

So, he gives her everything.

“He was my father,” Kylo confesses. He feels as though she is already very far away from him. “And a criminal. The Great Leader demanded his head, as is the punishment for such crimes.”

“And you were bringing it to him,” Rey mutters. “Perfectly preserved.”

“It was…” Words seem to keep slipping through Kylo’s grasp. “It was the least I could do.”

A high, choked sound emerges from the back of Rey’s throat. She covers her mouth with her hand again. It is to her credit, he thinks, that she is not sick, that she does not faint. Even in at this moment, at the lowest of his lows, he can still find reason to admire her.

“He doesn’t have any associates who would avenge his death,” Kylo says coolly, to Plutt this time. “I wasn’t hiding here to wait them out, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“Why-ever you were here, I don’t think you have a reason to be here anymore,” Plutt replies.

Kylo looks at Rey. “Rey?” he asks.

She doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Rey. It’s what I was tasked to do.”

“You’re tasked to do a great many things,” she says bitterly. “I think I mistook you for someone who puts what’s right before duty. Your _father_!”

“I—” Kylo begins. His hand strays to his side, to the wound that now burns there as if fresh. He wants to tell her that he can change. He does not know if that is true. The truth is that he had given no thought to change, before he met her. Yet, having only known her for a week, he has been changed by her. He is sure of it. He is not the same man who killed his father. That man would have driven Rey to an Eden House three days ago.

But the only evidence Rey has in his favor is his word. She has a PreservBag full of evidence against him.

Kylo steps forward. A couple of the men move back. Foolish of them. He is unarmed, and they have the advantage in numbers. And besides, all he does is walk over to the PreservBag and pick it up. He is careful when he reseals it.

Rey is only a few feet away now. Her arms hang limply from her shoulders, her eyes are downcast. She is beautiful. He doesn’t know how he failed to realize that the first time he saw her face. She has been beautiful from the beginning, and she is beautiful now in loathing him. He wishes it weren’t so.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

It’s the first time he can remember saying that to anyone in over twenty years. It is not enough to change her mind. And how it hurts to look at her. She is like the sun: too bright, too warm, too harsh.

He goes back to the inn to pack his things.

When he sets out from Nemo not an hour later, he is alone but for the PreservBag on the passenger’s seat. His baton is at his waist again. He has his course plotted— a straight line back to the Great Leader’s Fortress. All is as it should be, as if none of this had ever happened.

But Kylo Ren, Chief Enforcer of the Order, keeps glancing in the rearview mirror of his Silencer, hoping against hope that he will see a red sand bike mounting the dunes behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading this little story. Will it have a second part? It's very possible! I know what happens to Rey and Kylo from here, but my continuing to write in this world is more an issue of finding time than anything else. I certainly want to. I love this Rey and this Kylo very very much. ♥
> 
> Thank you also for all of your comments, which absolutely mean the world to me. I'll try to catch up on responses soon!
> 
> You can find me on [Twitter](http://twitter.com/destiniesfic), [Tumblr](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/), and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/destinies) if you want to say hello, and please share the [Tumblr post](http://destinieswritten.tumblr.com/post/181928998023/) to spread the word if you liked the fic. 😊


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